So it appears we’ve reached a new steady state in the ongoing Web vs. Web services debate. The following comment by Steve Maine describes it;
I do think there a lot of interesting ideas and scenarios enabled by RESTful usage of HTTP. I also think that WS-* solves a class of problems which RESTful HTTP does not handle well.
I’m glad my efforts, and those of other Web proponents, are having such an impact; it wasn’t that long ago that the Web wasn’t even considered a serious architectural option, and well known (but unnamed – you know who you are! 8-) Web services proponents were dismissing it as “for humans”.
So if you’re even a little bit surprised that REST has come this far over the past five years, believe me when I say that this steady state, isn’t; it’s just an inflection point. The RESTful stack solves a much wider variety of problems than most believe.
Remember, Web services are based upon a misunderstanding; if you want a loosely coupled, document oriented, distributed computing infrastructure, well, “You’re soaking in it!“.
More on this soon, at my Coactus blog.